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World Youth Day: Vatican Venue for Sex Education
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So the Vatican has ramped up its preoccupation with sex. As has been widely reported here and elsewhere, they've now got their very own sex-education program up and running. Published by the Pontifical Council for the Family, “The Meeting Point: The Adventure of Love,” purports to bring young people up to speed on the question of sex and chastity. And who better to do that than those paragons of virtue over at that Vatican.

Unveiled at World Youth Day (WYD) by Bishop Carlos Simon Vazquez, Undersecretary to the Pontifical Council for the Family, one wonders if parents fully realized when they sent their kids off to Krakow that they’d also signed them up to have this guy teach them a little something about sex:

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, Head of the Pontifical Council for the FamilyAmerican Life League condemns "The Meeting Point" here on their radio broadcast, Liftesitenews has an ALL-sponsored petition calling for the Vatican to recall it, and here's what the Cardinal Newman Society has to say about this latest scandal out of the Vatican:

"We find that The Meeting Point makes frequent use of sexually explicit and morally objectionable images, fails to clearly identify and explain Catholic doctrine from elemental sources including the Ten Commandments and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and compromises the innocence and integrity of young people under the rightful care of their parents."

Once again, the gutted Catholic Church of Vatican II—responsible for so much spiritual and moral carnage—is coming to the rescue, fresh off the largest clerical sex scandal and subsequent cover-up in history. (You’ve gotta hand it to these guys when it comes to chutzpah.)

And by the way, why is this even necessary after Theology of the Body (TOB) in Catholic schools was supposed to have brought our kids all up to speed on sex and chastity years ago? In my neighborhood, Catholic kids are force-fed TOB for two full years before they can even receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. Do you suppose TOB isn't all it's cracked up to be? Impossible! St. John Paul gave TOB to us, and he's a saint!

So with a straight face, Vatican representatives assured the folks at WYD that their new sex-ed program was developed to “help answer the problem of the deterioration of marriage and the family” as laid out at the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia and the Vatican Synod on the Family. (And if you believe that's what's really going on here I’ve got a building to sell you on the Via della Conciliazione.)

In his March 21, 2016 letter, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, tells us that “this vocation to love is the fundamental task of parents in the family. In accomplishing their work, they can count on the help of different moral and educational communities: schools and men and women teachers, as well as on the cooperation of the other members of the church community: the parish priests, the catechists and other Christian faithful.”

That's right! We really can count on the “church community and the parish priests” to teach our kids all about sex. That’s one thing they're very good at. But who do these men think they’re kidding with this embarrassing (for them) and transparent attempt to absolve classroom sex education of its intrinsic evil? In his essay, “Classroom Sex Education,” Vernon J. Schaefer makes the point that "classroom sex education initiates children into the sensual. It is the gateway to all forms of sexual immorality."

But, surely, the Pontifical Council for the Family isn't attempting to "initiate children into the sensual", much less build a "gateway to all forms of sexual immorality." The accompanying graphic for the Fifth Unit of their new sex-ed program, for example, is clearly promoting chastity. Right? It was probably just an oversight that the young lady preparing to camp out with her boyfriend has her hand on his thigh, while her friend is having her buttocks groped by her respective boyfriend. They're not getting any younger inside the Vatican...so, maybe they just didn't notice.

What’s the magisterium have to say about all this — the actual magisterium, that is, as opposed to the imaginary one inside the current Pope’s head. The real magisterium consistently prohibited classroom sex-ed from the very beginning. In his encyclical On Christian Education of Youth, for example,Pope Pius XI teaches that:

Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under an ugly term propagate a so-called sex-education, falsely imagining they can forearm youth against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural, such as a foolhardy initiation and precautionary instruction for all, indiscriminately, even in public.

On March 21, 1931 the Holy Office exhorted the Catholic world to reject all classroom sex education:

Question: May the method called "sex education" or even "sex initiation" be approved?

Answer: No. In the education of youth, the method to be followed is that hitherto observed by the Church and the Saints as recommended by His Holiness the Pope in the encyclical dealing with the Christian education of youth, promulgated on December 31, 1929. The first place is to be given to the full, sound and continuous instruction in religion ... Hence, no approbation whatever can be given to the advocacy of the new method even as taken up recently by some Catholic authors and set before the public in printed publications.

In 1951 Pope Pius XII reiterated the constant teaching of the Church against classroom sex education when in his allocution to the Fathers of Families he said:

All Catholic educators, worthy of the name and their mission, are fully aware of the overwhelming importance of supernatural forces in man's sanctification—youth or adult, married or single. But in the writings mentioned, hardly a word is said about these things, even when the whole matter is not passed over in complete silence. Even the principles so wisely explained by Our Predecessor, Pius XI, in the Encyclical <Divini illius Magistri>, regarding sexual educationand the related problems, are pushed aside with a smile of compassion: Pius XI, it is said, wrote these things twenty years ago for his own times! The world has gone a long way since then!

But that was then. Today's Vatican is very much into classroom sex-ed, with their brand-new course now available in five different languages with a promise to make it available in many more in the years to come and a curriculum that consists of six units, with four or five sections each. And of course Pope Pius XII was absolutely correct--the previous magisterial teachings against classroom sex-ed are "pushed aside with a smile of compassion" since the Vatican of Pope Francis has "gone a long way since then."

"The Meeting Point" includes all sorts of student materials, including "passages from Scripture, elements for discussion and written answers. Each unit section is accompanied by an educator guide and options for supplementary activities, such as film clips with discussion points reinforcing lessons."

And don’t the young people in this official Pontifical Council for the Family promotional photograph look like they’re all set for a little scripture reading on how to remain chaste? These girls in skimpy shorts and camping in the woods with their boyfriends are obviously taking every precaution against the near occasions of sin. They must be! I mean, look at the very top of screenshot, where it says: Pontificium Consilium pro Familia. This is all sponsored by the Vatican, in direct response to Pope Francis' call for a renewed and urgent attention to education in Amoris Laetitia.

“In this context, the Pope clearly speaks in favor of sex education,” said Bishop Simon Vazquez. Amoris Laetitia is clear on this: “It is not easy to approach the issue of sex education in an age when sexuality tends to be trivialized and impoverished. It can only be seen within the broader framework of an education for love, for mutual self-giving.”

Right!

In a related story, Pope Emeritus Benedict is now claiming that one of the reasons he abdicated was that he wasn't sure his health was up to the rigors of traveling to -- wait for it! -- World Youth Day.

I can sympathize with this to an extent, of course. If I thought I had to go to WYD for the rest of my life I'd probably quit my job, too. Why? Gee, I can’t imagine:

Mercy sakes alive! All this and a little sex-ed too.

Lifesitenews.com, by the way, posted a slide show here of some of the graphics in the new sex-ed program. Be warned: It contains graphic content. (Of course it does! It comes from the Vatican).Clearly, we are beyond crisis now.

Geoffrey Mergenhagen makes a good point in an email he sent us this afternoon:

We have arrived at a point to which diplomats and circumspect, careful scholars would refer as an "enormity." Translation: When a Vatican office itself openly defies the papal Magisterium of immemorial Tradition and wantonly PROMOTES illicit immoral behavior (which is the only reason "Sex Ed" was ever invented, by admission of its earliest protagonists in the 1970s here in America) a crisis of unimaginable proportions has arisen.

Repeat: Unimaginable.

Whether any pope reads every line of every document that is released during his pontificate by official Vatican offices, is a matter of speculation. It is unlikely that any pope can do so anymore in this age of instant publishing and communications.

However, the ultimate responsibility for its effect on the spiritual and moral life of one billion-plus Catholics IS his direct responsibility, regardless of whether prior scrutiny by the pontiff himself occurred.

That's just as true for popes as it is for presidents and prime ministers. They, as individuals, bear grave accountability by the very nature of the position entrusted to them. Thus, allowing for the possibility, however remote, that Francis did NOT know about the open mandate to corrupt young children with viciously wicked propaganda that only encourages immorality and which has now been broadcast by an official Vatican office, I think every Catholic parent and others, including clergy, religious and laity who understand the gravity of this crisis, have a responsibility to call upon the Vatican and inform the pope of this devastating news.

I expect that faithful Catholic media figures will come forth and make this issue well known. In such efforts, we simply must support their efforts to call upon Francis to condemn the new sex ed initiative and immediately revoke its implementation.

I agree, even though hell will freeze over before Pope Francis walks this back. Why would he, when his pontificate is itself dominated by a new kind of sex-education that calls even for the embrace of public adulterers and the removal of the stigma attached to sodomy.

They're from the Vatican...and they're here to help. Please help us oppose them with everything we've got.

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